Those bear market rallies will get you everytime.  Unsold houses reached a 23 year high.  Mix in stagflation caused by high energy and yes....the bear market will continue. 

Just a few days ago someone posted it was a good time to go long because the market is forward looking.  The rally from mid March was looking at a recovery in the second half of the year.  Someone even said we will see a DOW 15,000 by year end.  The bulls on CNBC will sucker you in every time.  Wow, things sure change when reality hits you in the head. 

jackg,

I love having philosophical arguments with you, because your posts make you seem very intellegent and insightful.  However, we have a fundemental difference in our market outlooks that force me to at least reply to your posts.  Now I would argue that I am not a perma-bull when it comes to the market or the economy in general, but I believe an investor can make money in any market condition.  There are a lot of problems facing the US economy, and the world's economy in general based on reports by the UN and othe world economy agencies.  But for all the real, tangible problems, astute investors can use them to their advantage. 

Oil prices are at record highs and they are killing us in gas prices?  Well profit is to be had investing in energy!  Wind, solar, natural gas and good old fashioned oil stocks have been going up.  Evergreen Solar, Petrobas, and tanker companies to name a few.

Inflation got those US dollars in your pocket feeling light?  Gold stocks can help.  I personally went with Yahmana Gold a week ago after it had a sell off and have made over 16% return in 8 days.

Food prices are reaching horrific levels and have hog tied many American families budgets.  So why not invest in farm stocks (We have had this argument before)?

A little flexibility and an investor can make some plays to grow his/her portfolio in even the most dire of times.  Oh, and just a playful jab for a previous comment of yours...world census data says that only in the last few years has the majority of the worlds population come to live in urban environments.  The world's rural population still makes up 49% of the total.

Q1 GDP revised up by .3 to .9.  Q3 and Q4 are suppose to be the best.  Why do we need a recovery if we never slipped? 

Seems some people watch too much CNBC.  We need a recovery when things go bad, and right now the only thing that is bad is housing and financials.  But if you look back, there are always a few lagging sectors.

People in Energy, Transports, and Industrials are very very happy right now. 

Good Luck,
Scott
S&P 500 Trend

Ditto or BOOYA
what ever you perfer
brwtrpilot

jackg1606:

Those bear market rallies will get you everytime.  Unsold houses reached a 23 year high.  Mix in stagflation caused by high energy and yes....the bear market will continue. 

Just a few days ago someone posted it was a good time to go long because the market is forward looking.  The rally from mid March was looking at a recovery in the second half of the year.  Someone even said we will see a DOW 15,000 by year end.  The bulls on CNBC will sucker you in every time.  Wow, things sure change when reality hits you in the head. 

Remember that the survey that indicated a 14% national loss only used Florida, Nevada, and California in its data. It's more like a flat market and a great bargain. Time to load up on stocks. The average bad news bear doesn't really make that much money.

14,200 looks very likely for the end of the year; there's no use to unnecessary pessismism. To have a depression, you really need 6 things to occur at once:

1) Unbelievable optimism in the stock market; since people are very pessimistic, this is not occuring.
2) High interest rates - with a Fed Funds rate of 2%, this is not happening (5.5% to 7.5% would be necessary)
3) A sustained bubble - i.e. biotech stocks and Dow - 28,000 in 5 years or 18,000 in current terms; that would cause a severe drop in stocks
4) High unemployment - 15% or higher
5) A bad housing market and several foreclosures caused my higher unemployment - the Fed has taken care of this by freezing interest rates for 5 years, thus in 5 years, it could indeed come back to bite us when the other four factors exist.
6) An environment of protectionist policies, such as the tariffs that existed during the 1930s.

That's why in the next 3 years, don't hold your breath of a severe recession. Your financial portfolio will hate you for betting against the US stock market. Rallies (especially bull rallies) will burn you every time. Look at 1999; people were betting on a correction and people were cleaned out before they had a chance to profit from 2000. Now, it's even more dangerous as the market is trading at at least a 15% discount.

Bob Brinker is a genius when he refers to what people in Europe pay for gas and that ours is a huge discount. The reason is because Europe has a socialist agenda and people pay thru the nose because they lack the capitalist required for an efficient economy.

---

Aqua

I play both long and short of the market.  I currently have two positions open (AFN & SDS).  Opened both of them last week and plan to close each of them in a few days when their short term trend changes.  Currently, I'm up 13% on AFN and 2% on SDS.  I'm not losing any money....lol.

 

Your analysis of the overall economy is absolutely irrational.  DOW 14,200 by year end......wow, I'd like to have your crystal ball.....then again...your crystal may prove to be broken.

 

So you're betting that your financials stock will perform better than the market. Interesting call. And good luck with it.

I'm up 0.6% since July of last year.and up 8.0064% from the market at 11,900 and a return to 11,900 would mean a 2.5% to 4.0% loss in my portfolio. I'm very satisfied with those figures, but I know you've outperformed and I congratulate you for having shorted the market. At one time, I was sitting on a portfolio loss of over 6%. Much of that loss was due to a higher concentration in consumer discretionary. Much of my most recent gain is from a bet on GOOG. I missed the gain on energy, but I also plan to miss the bust as I'm a value investor.

I find your posts interesting as well even though they are kind of funny to believe. I believe the bad news bears will get hit hard; not you, jackg, as you are too smart. Besides at least you believe certain stocks can outperform the market.

---

Aqua

S&P 500 will break all time highs once people see that the economy is SO MUCH BETTER than what we are told on TV.

Remember, the money is made when actual results are better then forcasts.  So its a lot easier to make money when the forcasts are low then when they are high.

Look at GooG when they were at 450.  They had estimates so low that when they beat them, the price returned to a normal level.  This will happen with the S&P.


Good Luck,
Scott
S&P 500 Trend

I'm not suggesting anyone do what I do.......but......this morning I took profit on both SDS and AFN as the market looked unsure of which direction it wanted to move in.  This afternoon I opened a long position on QID....it is setting up for a good run to the upside.

 

"There is only one side to the market.  Not the bull side or the bear side but the right side."  -   Jesse Livermore

 

I'm not the type to say your wrong and rub it in.  I'll just say.......I hope you are shorting the market.


I shorted the airlines yesterday after they spiked up.  Things should get real interesting with oil jumping above $130 again.